Driver selection

[Aged17]

Hi I am a first year on my school's formula team. At the end of the year, after all the major competitions, our team lets all the freshman (maybe 2 or 3 of us) drive the race car. I think I am the best street car (regular car) driver out of these freshmen, but I know a real car is nothing like the formula car. How could i train and develop my skills before then so that I can hopefully become a prospective competition driver in the future? I have heard karting is a great way to get started, so I was going to look into that and try do it as much as possible.

Thanks

[Aged17]

Hi I am a first year on my school's formula team. At the end of the year, after all the major competitions, our team lets all the freshman (maybe 2 or 3 of us) drive the race car. I think I am the best street car (regular car) driver out of these freshmen, but I know a real car is nothing like the formula car. How could i train and develop my skills before then so that I can hopefully become a prospective competition driver in the future? I have heard karting is a great way to get started, so I was going to look into that and try do it as much as possible.

Thanks

[Hector]

Play lots of GT4.

[VasilisTs]

1) Kart
2) Kart
3) Kart

So simple! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Mikey Antonakakis]

Do karting, go to autocrosses with a regular car to get the feel of what it's like to drive those courses, and play lots of driving simulators (Live For Speed and rFactor are great and inexpensive, just make sure you have a good wheel). Just drive every chance you get, do anything you think could help at all.

You don't have to be a great driver to hold your own at competition... I got 42nd in Autox at Michigan last year having never actually driven the car, past launching it in the 100 ft we have to drive in our basement. I had been to a few autocrosses and played lots of driving sims.

The one downside to Karting is you don't really get the same sense of how fast corners can come, like in an autocross... it's pretty easy to drive most karts at their limit, full throttle the entire track. I'd recommend doing real autocrosses in whatever car you can before you spend a lot of money driving go karts, unless they are the kind where you actually need to use the brakes. You need to learn how to drive around cones... you can be the fastest guy out there but it won't matter if you keep taking down cones.

[Wes Burk]

We plan on testing as much as possible over summer, its a shame if you spend so much time designing and building a car only to drive it at competition. If you have a place to test take the car out a lot over the summer while you have time (obviously w/ safety gear and all that jazz).

[woodsy96]

http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk323/woodsy96/Wheels.jpg

This isn't how we really train/select drivers, but LFS LANs certainly do get thrashed.

Favourite races: Formula V8's on South City Classic, and Racing Minis on Fern Bay Green

[Mazur]

Though karting, specifically shifter karting, would probably be the best route, auto-xing your car will make you a lot better driver as well and will be easier on the wallet http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Driving sims in between like others have mentioned is great too.

[JamesWolak]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Aged17:
Hi I am a first year on my school's formula team. At the end of the year, after all the major competitions, our team lets all the freshman (maybe 2 or 3 of us) drive the race car. I think I am the best street car (regular car) driver out of these freshmen, but I know a real car is nothing like the formula car. How could i train and develop my skills before then so that I can hopefully become a prospective competition driver in the future? I have heard karting is a great way to get started, so I was going to look into that and try do it as much as possible.

Thanks </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Stick around the team. Your most valuable experience will be driving your teams cars. And most likely the team won't want to give you seat time if you only show up when the car is running.

We had a badass kart driver on our team and he didnt touch the guys who had been driving the car for a couple years.

[Aged17]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Stick around the team. Your most valuable experience will be driving your teams cars. And most likely the team won't want to give you seat time if you only show up when the car is running.

We had a badass kart driver on our team and he didnt touch the guys who had been driving the car for a couple years. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I mean I'm around upperclassmen team members a lot, as much as I can, making parts and asking questions about how things work and if they can teach me how to do different things. I do also show up almost every time the car is running, but it is for me to learn and be around the car to gain as much experience as possible.

And what do you mean about your badass kart driver? He was better than the other drivers, or he was never around?

[Wesley]

He means his badass kart driver was much worse than those with practice.

I've found that the more you know about the car, the better at driving it you get. At least in my case.

[fixitmattman]

rochambo

[jaca]

yeah.. fsae cars are pretty unique, they're somewhere between a 125cc shifter and a formula ford (which, yes, are totally different machines)

basically just get as much seat time as you can, in whatever you can, wherever you can, and make sure you're in the right frame of mind to make steady incremental progress

read up on theory (start with Drive to Win and Going Faster)

after that, just drive as much as you can and seek out the best instruction you can get

autocross is the cheapest way to learn, and if you're looking to get fast in FSAE specifically, you can't beat taking a previous year's car to autox

[D Collins Jr]

Find someone who sort of knows what they're doing in these, be very very very nice to them, and then ask them to watch you drive and offer critiques.

Then, and this is very important, do what they tell you. Driving anything other than a formula car is only going to add to your confidence level, not your skill set.

[mjdavidson]

The best place to get practice is in a FSAE car in a parking lot. Don't even bother going to an autocross because you don't get much seat time for your money.

In my experience, the guys who have been the main contributors for a year or more are the best drivers. The reason is that they drive the car more often. We've got alot of wannabe race car drivers around here, and they aren't faster than the guys who built the car.

[Steve Yao]

+1 Jake Amonette's comments

As noted, time in the SAE car is the best. But that time is precious. Lots of new drivers spend a lot of their seat time just coming to grips with the car. The power, the speed, the response, seating position, shifter... Add to that the likelihood that they have little to no auto-x experience, or any performance driving experience and a lot of time is wasted. Anything you can do to become comfortable with each of these factors before you ever get in the car will make you a better driver right off since you will be able to focus more on the elements that you get only with the SAE car.

Karting is certainly the closest thing to SAE. We're talking real competition karts, shifter kart especially, not the neighborhood arrive-and-drive-10-laps. It will get you the speed, the lightning quick response, power, shifting, 2 pedals, etc. Doesn't quite teach you autocrossing unless you do your karting at autocrosses. And it requires an investment in a kart+equipment....or a good friend with one.

Going to autocrosses is good. As noted, not a lot of seat time, but still better than nothing while the car is down, or if you have not made the cut to be one of the training drivers. Here you can learn a lot about technique in and out of the car. Useful stuff: Navigating an auto-x course, learning to look ahead, steering and braking technique, handling slaloms(an area where a lot of teams don't seem to handle well)...

In the grand scheme of things you will spend very little time in a competition car. Its difficult to get enough seat time unless you have unfettered access to a kart track and good equipment. However, you probably drive your passenger car every day. You can practice a bit of technique on your drive to school/work. Things like holding one steering wheel position through the entire corner, looking deep into the corner, steady braking (i.e. applying a specific brake pressure to come to a stop, and learning to judge your speed and distance so that u don't have to modulate the pedal), and some precision (think of lane markers as cones, don't hit any when you change lanes. This will also help you be keenly aware of the size of your car.) ...and left foot braking. Disclaimer: I am not advocating threshhold braking or cornering at the limit on the street. That'll get you hurt or out of a car.

Riding a motorcycle can be educational as well...getting familiar with a hand clutch, engine response, crazy acceleration.

So to recap. Do whatever you can to be comfortable in the car at speed.... so that your real time in the car is spent learning the specific car and its limits, rather than everything-about-race-car-driving-in-one-go.

[Mikey Antonakakis]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Steve Yao:
+1 Jake Amonette's comments

As noted, time in the SAE car is the best. But that time is precious. Lots of new drivers spend a lot of their seat time just coming to grips with the car. The power, the speed, the response, seating position, shifter... Add to that the likelihood that they have little to no auto-x experience, or any performance driving experience and a lot of time is wasted. Anything you can do to become comfortable with each of these factors before you ever get in the car will make you a better driver right off since you will be able to focus more on the elements that you get only with the SAE car.

Karting is certainly the closest thing to SAE. We're talking real competition karts, shifter kart especially, not the neighborhood arrive-and-drive-10-laps. It will get you the speed, the lightning quick response, power, shifting, 2 pedals, etc. Doesn't quite teach you autocrossing unless you do your karting at autocrosses. And it requires an investment in a kart+equipment....or a good friend with one.

Going to autocrosses is good. As noted, not a lot of seat time, but still better than nothing while the car is down, or if you have not made the cut to be one of the training drivers. Here you can learn a lot about technique in and out of the car. Useful stuff: Navigating an auto-x course, learning to look ahead, steering and braking technique, handling slaloms(an area where a lot of teams don't seem to handle well)...

In the grand scheme of things you will spend very little time in a competition car. Its difficult to get enough seat time unless you have unfettered access to a kart track and good equipment. However, you probably drive your passenger car every day. You can practice a bit of technique on your drive to school/work. Things like holding one steering wheel position through the entire corner, looking deep into the corner, steady braking (i.e. applying a specific brake pressure to come to a stop, and learning to judge your speed and distance so that u don't have to modulate the pedal), and some precision (think of lane markers as cones, don't hit any when you change lanes. This will also help you be keenly aware of the size of your car.) ...and left foot braking. Disclaimer: I am not advocating threshhold braking or cornering at the limit on the street. That'll get you hurt or out of a car.

Riding a motorcycle can be educational as well...getting familiar with a hand clutch, engine response, crazy acceleration.

So to recap. Do whatever you can to be comfortable in the car at speed.... so that your real time in the car is spent learning the specific car and its limits, rather than everything-about-race-car-driving-in-one-go. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Listen to this man